Hi everyone!
This entry is meant to be a really quick, non-technical one and also for a bit of personal sharing. One of my feng shui clients recently finished his house renovations and boy does it look amazing. This lovely client of mine has also left a review on my Facebook which you can refer to on my testimonial page – it’s the review left my Desmond Lee which comes right after my HerWorld feature. This audit is one of the most memorable ones where the whole process was just so darn pleasant and I really enjoyed servicing them. Photo credits go to his interior design firm, De Style, who has kindly allowed me to use their images. Reach out to them if you wish to give them a go, and do mention you it was referred from my website if you can! My client has vouched for them and I’ve been referring some of my clients their way as well for interior designing needs.I have to apologize for not being in most, or rather, all of my photos. I personally find it very weird if I have to get someone to take a picture of me holding my luopan (羅盤) while I’m conducting a feng shui audit. Sometimes I wonder who does it for the other practitioners – do they have an assistant following them or do they get their clients to do it for them? I would love to have more marketing material I suppose, but I can’t help feel uneasy if my mind has room to think about producing more marketing material instead of focusing on the assessing the residence. If you would allow me to express some very honest thoughts – we practitioners are doing this as a means of living, and I guess all of us are trying to tell you in our own unique way that, “Hey! Look at how much business I have! I must be really good at what I do and I must be credible!” in a way that’s not so blatant and self-absorbed. I’ve decided right from the start that the way I will market myself is by showcasing my knowledge and experience in writing, and also to have a personal connection with each of my readers, hence, the setting up of this blog. I’ve been accused of faking my own reviews before, so I certainly hope me not being in the pictures don’t give naysayers another reason to attack me. The reason why I get my clients to leave reviews on my Facebook page is so that everyone can put both a face and a name to the client, look them up on Facebook and decide for yourself if they are genuine reviews of my past clients.
Anyway! Back to the main topic of this post: Following my previous blog entry, many of my readers have come forward to ask me if the methods from the different schools of feng shui I’ve applied for the landed property I’m helping one of my clients ‘design’ (the real designing is done by the architect of course) can be applied to apartments or BTOs. I hope this entry can answer some of those questions.
There will certainly be limitations when it comes to apartments because a lot of things are pretty much fixed. This is the reason why I’ve always encouraged my clients to engage a practitioner to hunt for a house together with them. There is not much flexibility in altering the structure of an apartment unit. For landed properties, a lot of things are within your control – from the Sitting and Facing direction of the house to even the piping underground in which I was able to apply 楊公水法, something I rarely get to do.
The areas which can usually be meaningfully altered for apartments would be the size of the rooms and the position of the stove. I’ve had cases where I advised clients to combine two rooms into a bigger one in order to change the internal layout and structure of the unit. Doing this is extremely important when we use the methods under 《陽宅三要》。Many people would agree that the rooms in apartments these days are really small – I personally find it extremely annoying. To be honest, I hardly come across any apartments who have a really ideal structure. For example, even if the house were to have the best structure under the Flying Stars method – 旺山旺向 – the negative stars like Star 2 (二黑巨門星) and Star 5 (五黃廉貞星) will end up in the master bedroom and affect the tenants. Having complete control over the internal layout of a house is a feng shui master’s dream because it gives us an opportunity to create our magnum opus.
I’ll take this opportunity to touch on 《陽宅三要》 once again, which I mentioned is the first method I apply during an audit. You can read more about it here. The《陽宅三要》method looks at three very important parts of the house: 1) the master bedroom which is determined by the biggest room in the house; 2) the kitchen where the stove is and 3) the sector which the main door is in. My clients would usually be able to alter the structure of the house by combining rooms and shifting the master bedroom to another sector. Some clients will have kitchens big enough for them to put the stove in another sector which can help in the tweaking the structure of the house as well.
The house mentioned here belong to 坤門艮主 where the main door and master bedroom are in harmony. On top of that, the kitchen is in the 兌 sector which is in harmony with both the main door and master bedroom which makes this a really auspicious house! And guess what… This house is in Yishun! This house will massively benefit the couple and eventually the children of the house based on its structure, and I can’t be happier knowing my clients got a good house for themselves.
If you have already purchased an apartment, not to worry as the flaws of the house can still be remedied in most cases. I can’t apply every single method or enhancement that I’ve read from the Chinese classics, but some things can still be done, and hopefully after the improvements have been made, you’re able to do an upgrade in a few year’s time.
Before I end off this post, I’d just like to remind everyone that no single Chinese classic on feng shui has ever, ever mentioned using items as a cure or remedy. This is something I am very against and I do have very strong opinions of ‘practitioners’ who advocate such things. The origins of this ancient art of well-being goes all the way back to the hunter-gather period, where the the very first human beings studied nature to keep themselves away from harmful elements. It has nothing to do with items or artifacts – they simply do not work. You can revisit one of my earliest posts on whether feng shui items work here. I will write a post to touch on this topic again soon because it is something I have very strong opinions on and I feel the public needs to be educated about this.
Meanwhile, take care everyone! And oh! I initially was trying to add a forum to my website but it’ll take me a while to figure out how to do that. Meanwhile, I’ve created a Facebook group here, please join the group if you wish and I hope we can get some discussions started there! Take care everyone and thanks for reading my blog! If you wish to get in touch, just click on any of the buttons below and you’ll be able to start a chat with me instantly!
-Sean
